“I believe my daughter was tricked into going to this man’s apartment under the pretext of giving English lessons,” he said.

“It was because she would help anybody, she is where she is now. My daughter didn’t come here to be murdered… she came here to teach.”

…

Miss Hawker’s sister Lisa, 25, said in a statement that her sister had felt safer in Japan than in the UK.

“Thousands of young people go abroad each year and for some reason the dangers of home seem to be forgotten,” she said.

“If Lindsay’s death can make at least one young person abroad be more vigilant then perhaps one more family can be spared the pain, the devastation, and the despair we are all experiencing.”

Yes. The low crime rate in Japan is of little meaning if you find you’ve become the rare individual trapped in an apartment with a psycho. Vigilance, not benign intentions, is the best protection against malefactors.

]]>By: Sean Kinsellhttp://whiteperil.com/2007/04/02/shame/comment-page-1/#comment-2825
Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:24:47 +0000http://whiteperil.com/?p=1399#comment-2825Yeah, and as I say, it wasn’t just a tossed-off comment. He was also quoted as saying something like, “She didn’t come here to be murdered; she came here to teach.” As if she were a teenager off to summer camp.

When I was in Bangkok in February, I was talking to a few friends who frequently have to hire native English language and test prep teachers to work in Asia, and one of them said something very interesting. It was an obvious point, but not something you really think about much. She said [paraphrasing], “Today, it doesn’t really register with kids that they’ve left home. Plane tickets are affordable; Skype and e-mail and your cell phone let you keep in daily contact with your parents and friends from across the world if you wish; satellite and the Internet provide TV shows from home. A lot of people don’t seem to get that they’re in a faraway place where, if they misread things or offend local sensibilities, they can get themselves into trouble that Mom and Dad actually are NOT close by enough to get them out of.”

Now, she was talking about mundane stuff like blithely neglecting to pay the electric bill, not to being murdered, but I think the point is potentially relevant. You’re safer here in the general statistical sense than you are at home, but all those dark rules about human nature that Granny taught you apply to the (generally statistically) upstanding Japanese as much as they do to everyone else.

]]>By: Zakhttp://whiteperil.com/2007/04/02/shame/comment-page-1/#comment-2824
Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:48:10 +0000http://whiteperil.com/?p=1399#comment-2824Even ASSUMING that Hawker had zero responsibility in the matter (she was knocked off out of the blue on the way to work, say), it is still a bizarre double-standard that her father sets.
]]>By: Sean Kinsellhttp://whiteperil.com/2007/04/02/shame/comment-page-1/#comment-2823
Wed, 04 Apr 2007 07:17:21 +0000http://whiteperil.com/?p=1399#comment-2823Well, to be fair, he sounds like a stalker now because we’re pretty sure he murdered a woman and buried her under a load of sand in his bathtub. Given what Hawker could have known of his behavior, it was overwhelmingly likely that he was just a slightly odd guy who had little sense of basic social boundaries and got a little over-enthusiastic around pretty women. But it’s unwise to encourage such people by meeting them on intimate turf even if they have no evil designs on you.
]]>By: Robohobohttp://whiteperil.com/2007/04/02/shame/comment-page-1/#comment-2822
Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:53:28 +0000http://whiteperil.com/?p=1399#comment-2822Exactly. The guy sounds like a stalker. Just assuming that because Japan has a low rate of murder, street crime, etc does not abrogate the individuals responsibility for their own safety.

Kind of why us US based conservatives like the 2nd amendment so much. “An armed society is a polite society.” Japan used to be armed but that was taken from them. May be time to re-arm that society.